Before Courtney Baird welcomed her daughter Everly in 2015, she expected that after giving birth, her bump would deflate like a balloon. “I thought, ‘No more belly! I’ll be able to see my feet again and finally have people stop asking when I’ll pop,” the 28-year-old tells Us Weekly. But when Baird looked in the mirror for the first time after delivering, she saw a stranger who looked about six months pregnant.
“I think on social media platforms, often times it is pictures shared solely of women who ‘bounced back’ immediately and were walking out in their skinny jeans with no signs that they just had a baby,” Baird tells Us. Which is why the New Hampshire-based mom shared a realistic side-by-side Instagram photo on November 6 — just one week after delivering her son Forden.
In the image on the left Baird is heavily pregnant with her second child, in the one on the right, she is postpartum, but her tummy still looks pregnant.
“Getting your body back after baby takes time and hard work. It’s not going to happen overnight, and definitely not in a week either,” wrote Baird in her Instagram caption. “For now I’ll just remind myself to be kind about my body and all the hard work it did to grow not only our sweet girl 2 years ago, but also our big healthy 9lb 4oz baby boy over a little over a week ago. You did good body, you did good.”
Baird’s post received more than 15,000 likes and hundreds of comments from grateful mothers who could relate.
“Your time after giving birth should 100 percent be on spent resting and healing and soaking up all that newborn love,” Baird tells Us. “Like I shared on Instagram, it’s important to be be kind to yourself and remind yourself, ‘You did good body, you did good.’”
